The Scoggins Report: November 2013 Spec Market Roundup

As we hoped, November’s spec market maintained October’s heady pace, notching the second month in a row of 2011/2012-style numbers as you can see from the month-over-month grid below. As we noted last week, last month’s numbers are the highest for a November since 2007, and the combined October/November number rivals 2011’s crazy high total from the same period (28).

Here are our favorite highlights:

Three non-studio buyers got on the board for the first time this year, while 2013 stalwart studio Fox bought its 5th of the year and 2013 laggards Columbia and Warner Bros. bought their 2nd and 3rd, respectively.

UTA’s 3 sales in November extended its 1st place lead over 2nd place WME to nine and over 3rd place CAA to twelve. APA had a great month, too, posting its own hat trick.

Big ups to Scott Carr, one of our favorite managers, who sold his first spec under his new management company banner, Management SGC.

November’s raw numbers are below, followed by the usual weekly breakdowns and the details of each sale. Enjoy.

Year-Over-Year Breakdown

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

New Specs

32

23

30

27

18

Specs Sold1

10

9

10

4

6

Percent Sold2

28%

22%

10%

15%

33%

Genres Sold

3 Action

2 Comedy

2 Horror

3 Thriller

5 Action/Adventure

3 Comedy

1 Thriller

3 Action/Adventure

4 Comedy

3 Thriller

1 Action/Adventure

1 Comedy

1 Drama

1 Sci-fi

2 Action/Adventure

2 Comedy

1 Sci-fi

1 Thriller

1 Total sales in November 2 Sales percentage of scripts that came out and sold in November

Genre Breakdown

Genre

Total

Sold

% Sold

Action/Adventure

10

3

20%

Comedy

7

2

29%

Drama

3

0

0%

Horror

3

2

66%

Sci-fi

3

0

0%

Thriller

6

3

50%

The above percentages reflect just those that came out and sold in November.

Weekly Activity Breakdown

Week of November 4:

8 new specs hit the boards (one on Friday the 1st), none of which have sold

4 additional spec sales were announced:

Blood Ties (11/4)

Bus 757 (11/6)

Line of Duty (11/7)

The Civilian (11/5 – went out 10/23)

Week of November 11:

8 new specs hit the tracking boards, one of which has sold

The Politician (11/14 – went out 11/11)

4 additional spec sales were announced:

From Here To Albion (11/13)

Nemesis (11/13)

Stolen (11/12)

The Unseen (11/11)

Week of November 18:

8 new specs hit the tracking boards, none of which have sold yet

1 additional spec sale was announced:

It’s On (11/21)

Week of November 25 (Thanksgiving):

No specs hit the boards (surprise)

No spec sales were announced (see above)

Spec Sales (alphabetical by title)

Project titles in the report are linked to the corresponding Spec Scout page, so you can click to see which of the below we’ve covered and scored there.

Attachments: Mark Gordon will produce through his eponymous production company with Grey Point Pictures’Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and James Weaver.

Notes: Reportedly sold for mid- against high six figures. Writers are proteges of Rogen and Goldberg. Hannah Minghella and Andrea Giannetti will oversee for the studio.

Logline: “Bad Santa” meets “Midnight Run.” A disgraced Governor and his accomplice go on the run from the FBI and US Marshal Service. Along the way, the governor gets kidnapped by a crazy, disgruntled constituent.

Attachments: Hutch Parker will produce through his eponymous production company.

Notes: Adapted from John Connolly’s short story “Mr. Pettinger’s Daemon.”

Logline: Kept under wraps, but said to have the tone of “The Others.”

About The Scoggins Report:

The Scoggins Report is a terribly unscientific analysis of the feature film development business based on information assembled from a variety of public and non-public sources. The numbers in the reports are by no means official statistics. Caveat emptor.

About Jason Scoggins

Jason Scoggins is a serial entrepreneur and senior executive who has founded and led companies in the entertainment industry as well as the technology space. A Hollywood veteran whose career includes stints as a TV literary agent and feature literary manager, Jason is probably best known for The Scoggins Report, the weekly film development newsletter he started in 2009 that currently has a weekly circulation of nearly 5,000 entertainment industry executives and creatives. The Report covers Hollywood's spec screenplay and pitch sales markets. Over the past five years Jason has founded several web-based entertainment industry start-ups, including the film development database company ItsontheGrid.com, which launched in 2009 and was sold to The Wrap News, Inc. in 2011. His current endeavor is SpecScout.com@specscout, the site that combines a screenplay coverage library with a scoring system in order to highlight the best scripts circulating Hollywood. He continues to provide consulting services through Eureka Canyon, the management and consulting company he established in 2010. Follow Jason on Twitter @jscoggins.